UKC

Hey there,

I've recently started using my old laptop (Lenovo N500, Vista 32-bit) as a DVD player, Iplayer etc that is plugged permanently into the TV via HDMI. The laptops sound card has been bust for a while, my work around has been a set of pc speakers and a little cheap external soundcard (5pound from amazon thing). However now that I have it plugged into the TV, I would like the sound to come from the TV speakers, not the little laptop ones (which are usually too quiet for films). I can only presume this doesn't happen because the sound card is broken, as when I plug another laptop in with a working sound card sound plays through the TV fine.

For the techy people, I read somewhere that I could re-route the sound through the video hardware and this would make it work. something to do with the video driver. I understand the theory of this solution, just not sure whether it is actually achievable with the graphics card and/or drivers I have for it. Could anyone think of a way of making this work?

Another option that I havent quite got my head around is perhaps running an aux cable from the external soundcard to the tv...but I don't think that would work because usually a tv only has 'in' jacks. (Thinking on my toes here). Anyone got any experience with this?

Third option: replace the soundcard. Is this easy to do on a laptop (can give you more specs if needed)? Does any soundcard work with any laptop?

Fourth option: buy louder speakers, which I'd rather not do really.

Any info or experience with a similar problem (although I doubt many people have been in the same situation) would be much appreciated.

In reply to The Green Giant:
Usually, it's right click the Speaker icon in the bottom right of the screen near the time. Then choose Playback Devices.

You should hopefully see HDMI in the list on the Sound popup window. Click on that then click on Set Default underneath.

In reply to Paul Phillips - UKC and UKH:
Yeah, it doesn't show up any playback devices. Unless I have the external sound cloud plugged in, then it shows that.

Again, I think this is down to the internal sound card is kaput

Thanks though!

In reply to The Green Giant:

If there's no sound card then internal or external speakers are a no go, likewise the HDMI well still need the soundcard to get there audio from.

Laptops in the most part (and the majority of desktops) use an integrated sound card so it would be a new mother board.

Some TVs will have an input for audio so I'd have a look on the back. I know my last two tvs have had a bunch of analogue inputs, you could go for VGA and audio from external card. VGA can put out high enough resolutions for full HD if the laptop can do no worries on that front.

In reply to The Green Giant:
You could try to identify the audio signal cables in a HDMI cable, hack a cable to bits and wire the external soundcard into the cable.
(edit)
Scrap that, it won't work.
Sorry.

In reply to The Green Giant:

I'm not sure that HDMI audio needs to go anywhere near a sound card. A sound card usually takes a digital audio stream and converts it to analogue. The audio on the HDMI is digital, not analogue (AFAIK), so ought to come from the DVD A/V stream demux and be sent to the HDMI.

I suppose some PC architectures might route all audio via some DSP on a sound card, but it doesn't seem a logical thing to do to me. Admittedly, I'm not a PC architecture expert.

Google 'lenovo n500 hdmi audio' yields promising hits, suggesting the HDMI sound comes via the video card. For instance:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-C-E-K-M-N-and-V-Series/N500-Problem-wit...

In reply to The Green Giant:
The amazon sound card you have works fine yes? This is prob USB? The sound signals are being rerouted by the USB driver and sent to the external sound card rather than through the internal sound card with isn't working. This does indicate that as long as there is a 3.5mm output jack on the USB sound card then you'll be able to get a 3.5mm to 3.5mm lead and connect your TV to the external card and all will be fine. Presuming your TV has a 3.5 mm input socket.
To fix the problem permanently you'd need to get the schematic for your motherboard and troubleshoot it at component level. As you are running windows vista I'm guessing it's an old laptop so probably not worth the expense

In reply to The Green Giant:

Oh, in addition to the 3.5 to 3.5 lead for the sound, you'd also need to connect the laptop to the TV via a vga to vga lead to carry the video signals. Hdmi carries both video and sound and will default to the internal sound card if connected this way (and we know the internal sound card isn't working)
This is how my laptop is connected anyway, vga to vga and 3.5 to 3.5.

In reply to The Green Giant:

Just checking, but is it truly HDMI and not a DVI connection on the laptop side?

In reply to captain paranoia:
Yeah, that's the impression I got, but trying to route the sound through the video card is easier said than done. At least it feels that way anyway. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know.


To Wilkie:

Finding a 3.5mm aux input jack on the TV would have been too easy I think...!

In reply to ultrabumbly:

Erm, pretty certain it's HDMI.

Just googled, it's definitely HDMI not DVI.

In reply to The Green Giant:

Sound isn't routed to HDMI by default on laptops but to the speakers, try this:

http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3416/~/configuring-a-p...

In reply to The Green Giant:

Some useful-looking threads on the Lenovo forum, discussing how to select sound output devices. It seems that if you have the device speakers enabled, it won't send sound to HDMI. [edit: pretty much what richlan said] Disable the speakers and sound is sent to the HDMI:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-B-and-G-Series-Notebooks/Nvidia-HMDI-ou...
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-C-E-K-M-N-and-V-Series/lenovo-n500-no-s...

Or there's discussion of the Intel HDMI audio driver:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-C-E-K-M-N-and-V-Series/lenovo-3000-n500...
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds001020